The basic concept of the asphalt or concrete road paver system has remained relatively unchanged for many years. Screed plate assemblies and method for paving are found and utilized in various construction paving industrial settings, such as payment of highways, airports, streets and other sites requiring paving of constructional site beds and pads, requiring a paving mat. Paving materials, such as concrete or hot mix asphalt (HMA), is loaded in the front of the road paving tractor, typically in a hopper, and conveyed to the rear by a set of flight feeders (conveyor belts), where it is spread out to a desired width by a set of augers in the road paver, and then leveled and compacted by a screed plate. A critical feature of a road paver is the self-leveling, or free floating, screed plate which will determine the profile of the material being paved or placed on the road bed, the mat and its correct smoothness and thickness. The screed plate is the flat bottom portion of the screed assembly that flattens and compresses the material into the mat. The free floating screed plate slides across the material.
There has been a recognized in the road paving industry need for providing screed plates of differing textures to a road paving machine.
The conventional screed plate is constructed of a one piece metal alloy screed plate with a flat surface interacting with the paving materials. In the conventional technology used today, the paving machine provides an electrically heated screed assembly with heating elements attached to or adjacent to a screed plate. This conventional screed plate assembly provides for one screed plate underlying the paving machine. The road paver/finisher using the conventional screed plate has only one force vector applied on the material to the mat applied to the road surface. Only one force vector is applied on the material as it is paved on the road surface
The references described in the related art do not disclose features of the present invention and would not be as suitable for the required purpose of the present invention hereinafter described. Screed plate apparatuss are found in the related art, exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 9,382,675 to Frelich et al. (“Frelich”) and U.S. Pat. No. 2,306,125 to Jackson (“Jackson”). Frelich discloses a paving machine having electrically powered vibrators to drive the screed assemblies, including one or screed plates configured to smooth the paving materials and a mechanism enabling further compaction of the paving material. There is no disclosure of a screed corrugation. Vertical vibration of a screed plate to achieve paving compaction is common in the industry, but there is no disclosure of horizontal or oscillating vibration in Frelich.
Jackson discloses a concrete paving machine having a screed provided with a means for generating, vibration, vibratory plates disposed on the front of the screed and a vertically fluted corrugated face portion having rearwardly curved lower edges. However, the bottom face of the screed plate is planar. The corrugated piece in Jackson is a tamper bar that operates separately from and in front of the screed plate. The apparatus in Jackson does not disclose or suggest corrugations or other texture on the bottom of the screed plate as set forth in the present invention. The corrugations of Jackson are limited to the vertical face portion of the screed, and are uniform throughout. There is no suggestion in these references for providing such corrugations on the bottom of the screed plate.
None of the references in the prior art contain every feature of the present invention, and none of these references in combination disclose, suggest or teach every feature of the present invention. The present invention is neither disclosed nor suggested by the prior art.
The foregoing and other objectives, advantages, aspects, and features of the present invention will be more fully understood and appreciated by those skilled in the art upon consideration of the detailed description of a preferred embodiment, presented below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.